right between the scapulae, back of the heart

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Ellie has found a new grocery store, which is good because it's closer and has better produce, but bad because it's not near anything else (that we know of). (Seriously, we switch grocery stores basically every year. At our old place, we went to the one in walking distance. The first year we lived in JP, we needed a T-accessible supermarket. After Ellie got a car, we started going to South Bay because there were other stores (like Home Depot) nearby. Then we switched allegiance to Dedham - Home Depot along the way, BJ's down the road.)

And so, when we were about 16 or 17, one of my friends discovered fanfiction in general and slash fiction in particular. In a way, we used it as a silent, secret rebellion, swapping these stories underground (no, really; our common room was in a basement). It fascinated me. Here were stories about people who presented as female one day and male the next, who loved people of their gender, who negotiated sex, who didn't have happily-ever-afters but who had to talk and argue and reconfigure their friendship. The screen did not coyly fade to black and the story often did not end with sex; instead, there were morning-afters and misunderstandings and confusion that had to be resolved. The people had agency and were active participants and, as the_shoshanna notes, sex did not fundamentally change them.

So, you want to learn more about the dw_suggestions process! This entry will be made the "sticky entry" in the dw_suggestions community (replacing the existing one, which was starting to show its age) to serve as an introduction to the Suggestions process, Dreamwidth development, and just what the heck people should be keeping in mind while they're discussing things here.

We are therefore temporarily pausing the existing import jobs until the traffic clears up some and we are able to further modify the importer so that it is even less of a load on LJ. We are also temporarily stopping the ability to queue new imports, so that once we bring the import queue back up, it will give the queue the chance to clear a bit. (Also, we'd like to minimize the impact on LJ.)

Now to assemble a Powerpoint for tomorrow's mini-lecture on Maria Callas, Renata Tebaldi, and Teh Famous Rivalry!!!! (Wondering whether it would be cool to play an aria and make the class guess which of them is singing it...)